livinglot | ⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #3

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test drive meme

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #3

WELCOME TO THE SHOW!↴

Or, more specifically, Lost Carnival's test drive meme! This is an opportunity to try out your characters in the setting before you apply, or to put together samples for characters you've never played before. There are going to be options for both new arrivals and veteran characters. Before we get started, let's lay down some details:

You can read the full premise here.
Reserves and Applications are both currently OPEN.
You can apply as a newcomer or as a "veteran" character who has been in the carnival for up to three years. In the case of veteran characters, you will need to come up with an explanation of why they haven't been around the carnival recently.
TDM threads can be used as game canon after the fact if both characters are accepted and the players agree to it.
If you are interested in additional IC and OOC plot responsibilities, consider applying for a Supervisor position. Treasurer, Wardrobe Manager, and Acquisitioner are currently open.

NEW RECRUITS↴

You gotta start somewhere, right? These prompts are for characters who are arriving in the carnival for the first time, and who are destined to sign a contract. How they go about that is up to you, but in the meantime they can enjoy the sights and sounds of something truly out of this world. Visitors to the carnival comes from many different worlds today, as the ringmaster casts out her recruitment lures. Will you become her most recent hire?

► ADMISSION FEES: After crossing into the carnival's realm and passing through the trees, most visitors will find themselves at the front gate - though not all choose to enter that way. If they enter legitimately, however, they will have to pass by a clerk who will trade admission and tickets for various attractions and rides in exchange for "anything of value." What is of value may seem highly subjective, and so some may struggle to produce payment at first, though in actuality the carnival will take anything from mundane currency to items of purely sentimental value.

► MIRROR MAZE: The mirror maze (pictured above) is a big attraction in the carnival, and stretches much further on the inside than it looks like it will on the outside. It's hard to get through, and what's more, after you've been in there for a while your reflections will start gaining a mind of their own - mostly in order to taunt and distract you with personal information. They don't know everything you know, but they know more than they should, and their mind games can be pretty hit or miss.

► GAMER'S CIRCLE: Almost all of the game booths are organized in a large ring around the Cookhouse, called Gamer's Circle. Your can play just about any carnival game you can imagine here, for a variety of prizes sometimes traditional, exotic, or outright magical. Dart tossing? Got it. That game with the water guns? Got it. Most of these booths are currently manned by humanoid spirits who look like they are made of smoke. If they can trick you into earning debt, they will.

► NOT YOUR WHEELHOUSE: Sometimes, even magical ferris wheels get stuck. The carnival's particular wheel is enchanted to create a particular out of this world experience - as you pass along the top, you feel as if they are so close to the sky that you can interact with the stars like baubles hanging above your head. Of course, the novelty probably wears off when the wheel is broken and you've been stuck enjoying the light show with some stranger for the last half hour. How are you going to pass the time?

► TRYING TO LEAF: No matter where you came from, you seemingly emerged from a forest. Obviously, to get back home you should be able to go back in the same direction, right? It turns out you can't. Worse, trying too hard to get through the wood will result in you getting lost, or turned back to the carnival. The trees here are not normal, and are varying levels of alien, including things like trees with glowing fruit or orange flowers that constantly burn like candles.

► WILD CARD: Anything else you can imagine in this setting! There are a lot of possibilities and you're free to explore them. Check out the rest of the game info or the locations page for additional inspiration. Want to make a starter with your character experiencing their first theoretical change? Go for it!

VETERAN WORKERS↴

These prompts are tailored to the carnival's existing employees, the veterans. Odds are they've been here from somewhere between a few months and three years already, and know their way around the block. For them, this is just business as usual - and depending on their attitude towards their job, they may or may not contribute to a few people accidentally getting themselves a contract. Whatever you do, though, don't warn visitors away from the carnival - the ringmaster hates losing business like that.

► DO YOUR WORK: This one's pretty simple - just have your character doing whatever you'd like to have their job be! There is a big list of ideas over here, and you could use this to try things out with a character you intend to be a new arrival, as well.

► WILL O' WISPS: The ringmaster's will o' wisps have gotten free, and she's asked that everyone keep and eye out and help her reclaim them regardless of their official jobs. Wisps are small creatures that burn both hot and cold and comes in a few different variations of the same basic theme. Handling them physically (or psionically, or magically, for that matter) is difficult due to their near intangible nature. Touching and being around them can result in confusion and a sensation similar to being comfortably drunk.

► BREAK TIME: Whatever you were doing, it's break time! It's time for you to relax however you see fit. Do you enjoy some of the carnival attractions yourself, or is that old by now? Do you hang out in the Cookhouse to get a snack? Do you take a nap? Yolo, baby!

► RIDDLE GAME: For a bit of fun, the ringmaster has left a variety of locked chests around the worker areas of the carnival, each with instructions and a riddle written on their lids. The chest will accept three guesses from each worker before refusing to respond to them any further. If you guess the right answer, the chest will open and you will be rewarded with some manner of fun magical knick knack. If you've run out of guesses, maybe you can conspire with someone else and promise to split the prize?

► CAPTURE THE... EGG?: The Ringmaster likes to keep things exciting for her employees, and this time she's devices a game that mixes an Easter egg hunt with capture the flag. She's hidden various metallic "eggs" around the carnival that chime like bells when people get near, and divided participants into three teams (red, blue, yellow of course.) The carnival has been divided into three zones, and the objective is to gather as many eggs as possible for your team (three points for gold, two for silver, one for copper.) However, when you are in a zone that doesn't belong to your team, if they can snatch off your team flag they can take you to "jail" and confiscate any eggs you may be holding for their team. When in doubt, bullshit the rules! This is a prompt, after all.

► WILD CARD: Anything else you can imagine in this setting! There are a lot of possibilities and you're free to explore them. Check out the rest of the game info or the locations page for additional inspiration. Want to do a performance? Hang out in the Backyard? Choose whatever appeals!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Now that is interesting. Seems too real to be some kind of puppet. He's a fan of skulls himself, and Baron Samedi would be proud, but this doesn't feel quite like that loa's work.]

Oh you will not be disappointed, my good...man.

[Only a second's hesitation there.]

I've got voodoo, I've got hoodoo, I've - well, I won't spoil it for you. But now you've gone and piqued my interest. You don't look like a stranger to magic, yourself.

Heh. Sometimes looks aren't so deceiving, huh? [He tips down his sunglasses, revealing dots of light within empty sockets.] I'm Sans the Skeleton. Before you ask, that's skeleton, bone and raised. Not the undead type.

[It's worth the clarification to someone who claims to do voodoo.]

[A genuine chuckle. Both at the pun and the specification. Funnybone here clearly knows what's up.]

Doctor Facilier, at your service. Was always more a charms and potions man than a zombie fan, myself.

I tell you what, Sans the Skeleton. You got any acquaintance with Tarot? 'Cause I could give your future a quick read, in exchange for lettin' me poke around inside.

[As a preview, he produces an ordinary-looking deck - but when he flips up the top card, that's clearly Sans, taking the place of The Magician.]

[Well, that's something, now innit? Sans's brow raises in apparent surprise, his tail flicking back and forth in interest. He's curious what kind of spell exactly he used to do that, and is even more curious what his tarot reading are actually capable of.

Aw, hell. Why not. It feels unnecessarily masochistic, but he wants to see this for himself.]

Sound good to you? [He glances at the sprite in the admission booth, who shrugs and nods. It's a favour to the carnival, and that should suffice. If the Ringmaster has a problem, they can fight about it.]

Alright. [He leans back a bit, ready to take it in.] Lay it on me.

{Facilier shuffles the cards with a showman's flair, impossibly high, low, and all around him before they land in his hand fanned out for Sans to consider.]

Pick three, Funnybone.

[Sans is actually sort of impressed by that - it's not that he doesn't think there's a monster out there that could do the same, but showmanship is showmanship. He taps his teeth with a claw, and then picks three cards without much consideration. This is meant for fate to decide, right?]

Bring it, pal.

[The first card, the leftmost one, is upside down. When Sans turns the reversed card upright, it looks like a version of The Moon.

Sans is on the card again, trapped in what's clearly somewhere underground, looking up at a glowing portal to...somewhere. After looking at it for a few moments, the image will shift, to Sans on the fairground. The moon he's looking to has transformed to a wheel of dozens of different images - moments from different timelines, perhaps?]

Looks like in the recent past your world's opened up. Wide up. Free from your shackles, secrets come to light, the whole shebang.

[As if reminded of something, he takes a quick glance over his shoulder when he thinks Sans isn't looking. But they've not been on his tail so far.

The next image is in the form of the Queen of Cups - Sans on a throne looking calm and resolute, not just lazy but at peace for the first time in a while, as he gazes into a chalice that holds swirling magical energy.]

Usually this one's a figure that's gone maternal. All calm, loving and wise. For you, I think somethin's got you centered. You know what to do with the information you got now, and you didn't before. You know where you need to be, where you're goin'.

[The final card is reversed again. When he rights it, the image is of Sans is on the same throne, but the chalice has been replaced with a sword of bone, sharp and deadly, matching a gleam in his eyes.]

But a man like you, enjoyin' life, takin' it easy... That justice you want to dole out could make you hard. Make you someone easier to fear than love. I'm not the soft and squishy type myself, nothin' wrong with that. Just be sure it's what you want. Or you could lose what you have.

[The cards come back into the deck seemingly on their own, and Facilier stacks them back together with a swoosh, finishing with a bow.]

[Yikes.

Not only does this magical picture schtick continue to be creepy and improbable, so does Dr Facilier's insights. Now, Sans has no reason to disbelieve that this man can actually see the past and future, considering he's well accustomed to magic in all of its forms. But there is something a little bit more intimate about his presentation than the typical vagueries of a prophecy go. He's not sure how he feels about the interpretation of him having "gone maternal", but... having an idea of where he's going is accurate enough.

On thing is for certain: he certainly can't just be reading Sans's face. After all, his mouth doesn't even more when he talks. The thing that more betrays his discomfort with that whole spiel is that he quietly hopes nobody he cares about was close enough to hear that.

He watches the cards disappear, the lights in his eyes flicking upward to the voodoo man's face. If it works that well here...]

Heh. Not bad. But you know how it is. Can see yourself in anything if you look hard enough, right?

[Its a half hearted dismissal of Dr Facilier's reading - if this guy is a real fortune teller, he'll already know that he's correct without Sans's reaction. Even if Sans's ill ease during the actual reading hadn't already given it away.]

Good enough for an entry fee, anyway. But hey...

[He leans in conspiratorially, like he's telling a secret behind a cupped hand.]

Before you poke around too much, if you really want something out this place, you'd be better off going straight to the top. Then again, you seem like the kind of guy who'd know a rigged game when he sees one.

[With rich folks and tourists it's half cold reading, half the cards themselves; the deck itself is magic he traded for, once upon a time. Sans gives far less away, but the atmosphere has Facilier firing on all cylinders. There's the feeling of an audition about this whole situation, all the more when Sans gives him that little tip.]

Oh I've had my fair share of rigged. Given out my fair share, too.

And if someone did want to go 'straight to the top', who and where would he be lookin', exactly?

[The only two true auditions in the carnival are either figuring out who to talk to on you own, or impressing a worker enough to save you the trouble, so in that sense Dr Facilier has definitely succeeded. Sans usually isn't the type to be very forthcoming with information, but something about this whole thing has him curious enough that he might just be trying to create and excuse to have the man stick around for a little while.

Wise or not, he knows little about this man besides his flare for the dramatic. It seems fitting, if nothing else.]

No surprises here, but she goes by the Ringmaster. Ask around for her among the other soot sprites, like this guy - [He gestures at the shadowy figure standing inside of the admission booth, like a being made entirely of ash.] They're pretty much obligated to show you the way. She'll be interested in speaking with you, guaranteed.

[He would know. He did the same thing, a few years back.]

[He regards the soot sprite with interest, wondering more and more exactly where he is. Normally he'd at least entertain what he could steal from such a place without them noticing, but in his current situation, maybe negotiating is the better deal.]

I'll be sure to pay her a visit.

May be late in askin', but it's not every day I meet a man like yourself. Or your sooty friend in the booth. Just what is this place? It can't be any ordinary carnival.

[Sans snorts in amusement, leaning back again.]

You'd be surprise at how infrequently people actually ask that.

[They ask him what he is a lot, sure, but not so much the part about the actual nature of the carnival and where it's set up.]

We came by from another world. You're not actually on whatever planet you came from, right now - technically this would be a side dimension. Our tours take us all around the multiverse, if you're familiar with the concept.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #3

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i've got something that's half sans' application and half facade.com if that's cool with you

abso-fuckin-lutely, my friend!

:D

wow. dang. A++

I PROBABLY can't do that for everyone your history section was super thorough

ah yes, i know the struggle!

thank you tho :D

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